Ninety years ago, Great Falls residents were hard-pressed to find a Coca-Cola to buy.

CLOSE

Coca-Cola fizzed in Great Falls

Butte had a Coke franchise in the Roaring '20s, prior to the Great Depression, but Great Falls had no such arrangement.

If anyone could muster up a Coke back then in Great Falls, "It probably would have come from Butte," said Tim Wylder of Great Falls. "It wasn't readily available."

Recent news that Coca-Cola has stopped manufacturing soft drinks in cans in Great Falls prompted members of the Jorgensen and Wylder families to reminisce about a time when bottling soft drinks was a going enterprise in the city.

Tim's great-grandfather, Rasmus Jorgensen, got Great Falls into the soda pop business in 1907 in a shack on the back of a southside lot where he lived.

This was the Electric City's first soft drink bottler, although it was possible to get fizzy drinks before that — just not ones that originated in Great Falls.

Business was primitive by today's standards, according to Fran Wylder, Tim's mother and granddaughter of Rasmus.

"They would just wash the bottles in a big tub of water," Fran said. "It started in a little wooden building down at 309 6th Ave. S. It was just a bottle at a time. It was none of the types we know. It was sarsaparilla, lemon, root beer and strawberry or cherry. There were no brand names."

Rasmus Jorgensen was a native Dane who knew how to operate steam-driven equipment. He came to Great Falls in 1890, and several years later helped build the mammoth sandstone building now known as Paris Gibson Square. But the soft drink business beckoned.

At first, Rasmus secured leftover beer bottles from bars, and he probably got them for free, according to Fran's brother, Bob Jorgensen Jr., also of Great Falls.

Rasmus, who had 10 children, built up the soda bottling business, but his health began to fail in the 1920s, and he died in 1929, the year of the big stock-market crash that led to the Great Depression.

In the meantime, Rasmus' son, Bob Jorgensen Sr., had moved to Hollywood and was working for Standard Oil of California. He helped run a service station near the corner of Hollywood and Vine at a business frequented by Hollywood stars, including comedian Red Skelton and actor Orson Welles, who would later direct and act in the classic film, "Citizen Kane."

Bob Sr. left Tinseltown behind and drove home to Montana in the couple's Chrysler Super 6 to run Great Falls Bottling Works. In Southern California, he had toured a Coca-Cola facility, and in Great Falls he secured a Coke franchise, buying northcentral Montana territory from a franchisee in Butte.

In 1931, Great Falls had easy access to Coca-Cola after the Jorgensens built a new bottling plant on the back of the family's southside lot with help from Coca-Cola and a bank.

At first, the renamed Great Falls Coca-Cola Bottling Co. continued to sell its usual products in 12-ounce bottles, such as orange drink, root beer, sarsaparilla, cream soda and Green River.

"Nobody here in Great Falls knew much about Coca-Cola (in 1931)," Fran explained. "He'd put a bottle in each of the four corners (of a wooden soda-pop case)." Coke came in bottles slightly larger than 6 ounces, about half the size of other pop bottles. Slowly but surely, Coke, which originated in Georgia, began to catch on in northcentral Montana.

"Most of this stuff was sold in the bars, very little in the grocery stores," Bob Jr. added. He explained a couple would come to a bar, and women would buy a soft drink in the front of the tavern as men gathered toward the back to drink alcohol. In the 1930s, soda pop cost a nickel in the Electric City.

Business increased, and the Jorgensens paid cash for a new westside plant that opened in 1941 at 625 Central Ave. W. in an art deco-style building.

Mixing pop with liquor became popular during World War II, but the war also brought on sugar rationing. Fortunately for the family, Great Falls was flooded with military personnel during the war, so the bottling company got a 100 percent allotment of sugar, rather than a 50 percent cut that a bottler in Billings had to endure.

Even so, the company had to choose just one soft drink to sell during the war, and that was Coke, Bob Jr. said.

"7UP was the last one they had to give up," he said. The firm also raised pop prices from 5 cents to 10 cents; the big jump came in part because coins were used in pop machines, and either a nickel or a dime would work in them.

The soda pop business was brisk after the war and in the 1950s; returning G.I.s loved Coca-Cola. Other brands in Great Falls were Nesbitt's orange drink, Nesbitt's root beer and Sprite, Coke's answer to 7UP. Bob Sr. incorporated the business in 1955.

In 1960, Fran's late husband, Jim Wylder, left the oil business and returned with Fran and the children to run the family business.

In 1967, the business bought rights to bottle and sell 7UP, Royal Crown Cola and Dr Pepper. In other acquisitions, the company bought Havre and Kalispell franchises and closed the bottling lines. It also bought the Missoula franchises, which continued to bottle soft drinks.

"We grew exponentially," Tim said.

Time came to begin putting soft drinks in cans; a new plant at 933 38th Street N. opened in August 1979, financed by industrial revenue bonds.

As the 1980s wore on, the corporation considered buying bottling operations in Billings. Instead, amid the rising costs of franchises, Jim Wylder and most of the Jorgensens decided to sell the business in 1986 to a consortium of investors.

"Dad was not at all happy when we did that," Bob Jr. recalled. Years later, Coca-Cola acquired the Great Falls area Coke franchise.

Under the Jorgensens, Coke dominated the soft drink business in northcentral Montana, with a 75 percent share of the business by the mid-1980s. After the sale, Pepsi made inroads in Great Falls.

Some 107 years after Rasmus Jorgensen initiated soft drink bottling in Great Falls, a chapter in the city's history has ended, with no more bottling or canning of soft drinks in the city.

"It's sad from my perspective," Tim Wylder said. "That prime production line employed a lot of people. It's a loss for the community." He speculated about a dozen primary jobs were involved; Coca-Cola public relations has not released how many workers lost their jobs, and could not be reached Friday. However, a spokeswoman told the Tribune earlier that 50 jobs would remain, and that workers whose positions were eliminated could apply for jobs elsewhere in the company.

Tim conceded economics must be considered, and the family company did the same thing in the past.

"We closed down bottling lines in Havre and Kalispell," Tim said. "There's not too much you can do about it."

Bob Jr. recalled how the Great Falls plant at one juncture could produce 550 cans of pop per minute, and soft drinks were sold as far away as northern Wyoming and Idaho.

Soft drink bottling or canning in Montana is fading away.

At the same time, soda has been rapped by nutritionists in this century for contributing to soaring American obesity rates, although low-calorie versions and moderation are options.

One thing's for certain — it's not hard to find a Coke in Great Falls any longer. Or a Mountain Dew, a Cherry Pepsi, exotic premium root beer, Shasta brand pop, grocery store brands, Sprite, 7UP and more.

Richard Ecke writes a weekly column on city life. Reach him at 406-791-1465, or email him at recke@greatfallstribune.com.